Response to the weekly challenge at the LJ community, toourmeadow: “Fever”.

Title: Fever
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Rating: PG
Summary: Edward is trying very hard to send all of Bella's newly constructed plans to wait until marriage to the wind...will he succeed? Pre-Eclipse Epilogue. BxE one shot.

I was burning, scorching, melting inside as his cold fingers slid slowly across my skin. My skin felt every small pressure that his ice cold hands placed on me and the chills that should have coursed through me had instead transformed into roils of white-hot flames that flared wherever his long, slender fingers touched. Could he possibly realize the effect he was having on me just by tracing his fingers up and down my arm like that? Surely, he felt the rush of warmth that he caused wherever his hand strayed, but if he did, he showed no real sign of it. Instead, he was just silently observing the lazy patterns his fingers were making.

My eyes drifted shut and I let out a soft groan of contentment, leaning my head back in the grass of our meadow. I twisted some of the blades in my hand and just reveled in his touch. I felt a small smile play on my lips as his fingers moved my arm to my face which I felt certain it must be bright red with the feverish jolts of warmth his fingers were sending through me.

“Bella…” His voice sounded almost pained. My eyes fluttered open in surprise when his hands stopped their motion and fell from my face. It took me a moment to meet his downcast eyes. I propped myself up on my elbow and studied his face intently for the emotion I had heard in his beautiful voice. Instead of sorrow, though, I found frustration.

“What is it?” I asked, shifting myself closer to him, already missing his touch. I reached for his cold hand and intertwined my fingers with his while waiting for him to respond. It didn’t have quite the same effect on me as when he was softly running his fingers across my skin but it was enough to revive at least some of the smoldering heat in the pit of my stomach.

I didn’t realize I was staring at our hands until he reached over and guided my face back to looking at him. Somehow, when I was distracted by staring at his hand in mine, he had moved much closer and his proximity momentarily took my breath away even after all this time.

“Bella…” he started again. I couldn’t remember a time when I had heard him struggle for words and I stared, amazed, as he seemed to be doing just that. “Do you know…do you know what you do to my self-control by blushing like that?”

I stared, speechless and motionless, but nonetheless somehow pleased that I could have had such a visible effect on his seemingly unmovable self-control. I ducked my head with a small, secretive smile and shook my head, not knowing how else to respond. He removed his hand from my grasp with barely a flick and used both of his to cup my face gently. I knew that my face must have been bright red by now, but I didn’t care anymore. I felt absolutely feverish with love as I stared into his burning ocher eyes.

Our lips crashed together with a force we’d never had before in a kiss and I gasped against his mouth in surprise. Falling back against the soft meadow grass, Edward rolled on top of me eagerly, his mouth only leaving mine to allow me to gulp in air before returning hungrily.

My body felt like it was literally on fire as our mouths tangled together wildly and his hands grasped me so tightly. I pulled myself closer to him and our bodies pressed together eagerly. His fingers played lightly with the hem of my shirt and I froze, fighting down the pulsating heat that was pounding through me and trying to find my own self-control.

His lips never let up, traveling down my neck, across my collarbone and any other skin they could reach without much trouble. It took an almost Herculean effort to push him away from me.

“Edward,” I groaned reluctantly, “we can’t.”

He closed his eyes in obvious frustration and lay down next to me, one of his hands still resting at my hip, a constant reminder of the pooling warmth I felt inside. I reached for the hand there and took it in mine again, reaching our joined hands up to my lips and kissing them. His eyes caught mine as I did this and his expression of pure agony caught me off guard.

I swallowed hard as he closed the distance between our faces again, this time less urgent, but his kiss had lost none of its potency. Forgetting momentarily why I had protested in the first place, I melted against him losing myself in the fervor of his kisses. My heart pounded almost painfully in my chest and I knew he was probably even more aware of it than I was.

As if reading my mind, his lips slowly grazed their way down to the hollow of my neck and he pressed them there so softly I hardly felt him even do it. He murmured my name against the skin there and I sighed in defeat. If this was how he was going to play, how could I possibly fight him off?

I had already forgotten every carefully planned defense I had crafted in the past few weeks in preparation for this. I could barely remember why I even wanted to make those plans in the first place, until the glint of his mother’s ring caught my eye as it shimmered in the sunlight streaming into the meadow.

“Edward,” I asserted, more firmly this time. Gathering all of my fragmented will power around me, I dragged his attentive lips away from my neck where he had buried his face even farther when I spoke his name. “You know that we should wait,” my voice faltered, betraying my own crumbling sense of determination.

He growled softly before springing lithely away from me and to his feet. He paced a small patch of grass so quickly I could hardly make out his figure and my insides twisted in remorse at causing him any distress.

“You know I don’t mean anything by it other than exactly what I said,” I defended myself quietly, knowing he would hear me even though I could hardly make out my own words. He stopped pacing so suddenly it startled me to see him staring down at me so intently. I couldn’t read his impassive features until a flicker of emotion entered his eyes suddenly and set them on fire again.

“I know, Bella,” he answered quietly, giving me a small, heartbreaking smile. I couldn’t help but offer one in return. He laughed a strange, forced chuckle at my smile and shook his head. “Do you find it strange that the tables have suddenly turned so completely?”

I smiled wider and allowed myself a small laugh too as I rose to my feet and walked into his beckoning arms. He held me close in a tight embrace as I shook his head against his chest.

“I thought we came to the conclusion a long time ago that nothing was normal about us?” I whispered quietly into his shirt. His hand stroked my hair thoughtfully and I felt his lips caress the top of my head gently. Loosening his hold on me slightly so he could better look me in the eyes, he tapped me under the chin lightly and then kissed the tip of my nose. At his lips’ contact with my nose, I felt a thrill run through me with the same white-hot electricity that made me feel as if I was running a terribly high fever and I shivered slightly from the feeling.

He was silent for a moment, just studying my reaction before he commented tenderly, “You really are absolutely beautiful when you blush like that, Bella.”